Dossier
by Skeiler Stark
Summary: Loki has taken the Tesseract and this is a Level 7, so Nick Fury calls on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s senior archivist to search the records and get the pertinent information into the Avenger's hands as quickly as possible.


Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., had started punching numbers into his phone as soon as the truck carrying Loki and the Tesseract was far enough away to make shooting at it just a waste of bullets, and as soon as he had made the fatal pronouncement to Agent Coulson—"We are at war."

He had already decided to pull those extraordinary people identified for the Avengers Initiative together—he would need extraordinary people to respond to this extraordinary threat, even if the Security Council had decided to shut the project down. Fury was confident he could find the push that would be needed to make a unit out of them—but before he could do that, they would need to be briefed and that meant going to the Archivist.

"Ross," Fury barked into the phone as soon as the line was active. "We have a Level 7 situation. I'm bringing the Avengers in and I need briefing dossiers for Stark, Banner and Rogers. When can you have them ready?"

Ross' voice was sharp at the other end—measured and precise, "When are you arriving back at headquarters?"

Fury smiled. Ross was terrifyingly efficient and there was no one who could rival her knowledge of the S.H.I.E.L.D. archives. Anything anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever learned had been accessioned into Ross' information management architecture—examined, sorted, labelled, indexed, cross-indexed, and filed away. He could already practically hear her fingers flying across her keyboard, pulling together finding aids and sending IMs to retrieval, digitisation and GUI design squaddies.

"Here are the facts: a hostile calling him 'Loki' from Asgard has taken the Tesseract." There was a hiss in the line on Ross' end, like a sharp breath or the rush of air from a pressurised seal. "We don't know what he's planning to do with it, but the dossiers need to have all relevant information on the Tesseract and any Asgardians we now about, particularly the events from New Mexico regarding 'Thor.' I don't think this represents an Asgardian invasion—treat Loki as a rogue agent."

"I understand," Ross said, sharply.

"He's taken Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig under some kind of mind control. We need information on Barton's background, previous connections. We need to assume Loki will need more than just two people to accomplish his goals. I'll see you back at base."

"Yes," Ross agreed.

Fury disconnected the call as a new helicopter drifted down to collect him. By the time he arrived on the helicarrier, Ross had already prepared four dossiers and was standing patiently by the large conference table on the bridge. She was watching the frenetic activity in the trenches around her with a look of detached curiosity, he body preternaturally still. Fury sat down and pulled the stack of dossiers toward him—they were large, flat panels with touch screen interfaces housed in slender leather slip cases. Ross had been instrumental in their development. Initially, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been using Stark tech for the first generations, but Ross had been unhappy with them—she'd complained continuously about fingerprint smudges and design flaws that negatively affected her ability to effectively communicate information and implement her interface designers' work. Eventually Ross had just commandeered an entire division of R&D techies and come up with these. Fury hadn't argued—Ross had an infuriating way of making her point by forcing him to admit that she had not been wrong. As usual, she hadn't been wrong this time—her designs were better.

The top dossier was labelled "Stark."

"Background on everyone selected for inclusion in the Avengers Initiative, with emphasis on Agent Barton's underworld connections; all available information on Loki and Asgardians; Dr. Selvig's research notes on the Cube, as well as Howard Stark's observations and the confiscated HYDRA notes; and anything I deemed relevant from Dr. Banner's work with gamma radiation, given the Cube's unique energy signatures," Ross intoned automatically without looking away from the agents working furiously below her.

Fury nodded, silently.

"We had digitised the majority of the Cube records to make them available to Dr. Selvig, but some of the Stark records were still under an injunction. I took the liberty of digitising them myself and redacting anything I felt was not prescient to the task at hand," she paused and turned to eye Fury. "Was I wrong?"

Fury tapped the case thoughtfully. "Probably not," he acceded. "What about Phase 2?"

Ross snorted. "I know better than that. Anything even remotely related to Phase 2 or that might give the barest hint about it was redacted. Thoroughly."

Fury waved at her to continue her brief and Ross turned back to watching the trenches, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. "Dr. Banner's dossier is very similar, only I chose not to include as much information on the Avengers Initiative. I felt that Dr. Banner would be less curious than Mr. Stark, and I believe it will be more important to anticipate Mr. Stark's singular interests and attempt to over-inform him to give him the illusion of openness on our part—perhaps by doing so we can stop him from attempting to go searching for knowledge which does not concern him."

"We both know that's a vain hope, Ross," Fury sighed. He pushed aside the top two files and revealed the third, labelled "Rogers." He was surprised to see the large leather slip case bundled together with a paper archival folder, embossed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo and held firmly against the larger case with a neat library knot. Fury slipped loose the knot and opened the folder—Ross had provided the highlights about the Cube's potential threat and Dr. Selvig's work with it, laid out on carefully designed S.H.I.E.L.D. letterhead. Beneath that, Fury found copies of Stark's original observation memos, which Ross had had some design squaddy go so far as to make up to look like old SSR records. It was an old fashioned way to get the relevant points across—Fury appreciated the nod to Roger's background.

"I believe Captain Rogers would be more comfortable with a traditional briefing document, at least initially," Ross explained. "All the other information you requested is laid out in full in the true dossier, but I think he will respond more favourably to a printed record that resembles those he was used to in his own time."

"Thoughtful of you," Fury teased. Ross' eyes flashed angrily at him. She hated any comment from Fury that implied she allowed emotions to influence her work. "You probably know more about Captain Rogers than anyone else here, Ross."

"Thoughtfulness did not play a part in my decision—it was logical to assume the Captain would respond positively to something he is familiar with," Ross snapped. "I have spent more hours reviewing and digitising records related to the Super Soldier Program and the search for your missing superhero than anyone else, it is true—and I only came to the same reasonable conclusion about Captain Rogers' preferences that anyone else would have who had worked with those records as I have."

Fury laughed, "Easy, Ross. These are perfect. I need Banner's in Agent Romanoff's hands as soon as she lands in Calcutta."

Ross unfolded her arms and started tapping at the computer strapped to her wrist—a screen materialised in the air above her forearm and she began pushing icons around. "I'll have Dr. Banner's dossier replicated at our field office in India—they'll put a new physical copy in Agent Romanoff's hands."

"Good," Fury said. He began to try and re-tie the two dossiers for Captain Rogers—badly—and before he could mangle the string, Ross had waved away her screen and crossed to the table. She pulled the folder and case away from Fury and executed a new library knot deftly, with sharp, precise movements—the loose end through a loop at the other and around the dossiers, under, over, through again. She stacked the other cases on top and pushed the pile back at Fury.

"I'm going to continue running searches in the archives for information on Loki," she said, and turned on her heel to rejoin her troops at their workstations on the bridge's port wall.

"Ross," Fury called after her. She stopped, but did not turn around. "Good work."


End file.
